Are Bush Voters Really So "Dumb"?

or

How Kerry Supporters Have Dug Themselves into a Hole So Deep They Can't Get Out

Almost immediately after George W. Bush defeated John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election, anguished cries rose up among Democrats and liberals across the country: "How could American voters be so stupid as to vote for Bush?" Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper chimed in with a post-election front page that asked, "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?"

What started as a rhetorical question, a moan of despair, suddenly took a scientific turn a few days later when various writers, researchers and bloggers attempted to prove, mathematically, that Bush supporters were indeed much stupider than Kerry supporters. Not metaphorically -- but actually, biologically less intelligent.

Exhibit 1 in the modest pile of evidence against the intelligence of Bush voters is this Web page which shows a chart purportedly giving the average IQ of people in each state, coded to show which state voted for which candidate. This chart was (and is) referred to as gospel across the Internet, supposedly proving beyond doubt that Bush voters are vastly dumber than Kerry voters. Several print magazines even published -- but then later retracted -- that chart, including (most famously) The Economist magazine.

(I would like to point out at this early stage that I personally give no credence to the concept of an "intelligence quotient," and believe that human intelligence cannot be measured with artificial tests. I only discuss IQ here in order to rebut the false claims made by others who use IQ as their only weapon.)

It turns out, however, that the data on that chart is entirely fictitious, and bears little relation to reality. (The page's author recently amended the text accompanying his chart, basically admitting this.) Much more accurate state-by-state intelligence rankings can easily be found in various sources. This pdf file, for example, is a peer-reviewed article by Michael A. McDaniel in Intelligence Magazine that calculates the actual IQ of each state, and is considered very reliable. It also demonstrates how wrong the original chart is -- it's not simply inaccurate, but intentionally deceptive with completely false statistics. A hoax.

In order to determine the actual intelligence differential between Bush voters and Kerry voters, I have taken the reliable data from the academic paper linked to above, and added additional information to the chart (such as the number of electoral votes per state), to give an actual, true rundown of the average intelligence of each state, the relative population of each state, and what percentage of each state's voters voted for Bush in 2004. Putting all this together, we can calculate the true average intelligence of Bush voters and Kerry voters.

The results are given in the chart below:

Column 1 shows each state's ranking by IQ, with the highest IQs on top;
Column 2 show the state's name;
Column 3 shows the number of electoral votes that state has;
Column 4 shows the state's actual average IQ as determined by the unbiased McDaniel study cited above;
Column 5 shows the exact percentage of that state's electorate who voted for Bush in 2004.

The rows are color coded to note which candidate won each state's electoral votes (blue = Kerry, red = Bush).

The analysis continues below the chart:

IQ Ranking by State
in the 2004 Presidential Election

Rankby IQ

State

ElectoralVotes

Average IQ

Bush Shareof 2004 Vote

1.

Massachusetts

12

104.3

36.8%

2.

New Hampshire

4

104.2

48.9%

3.

North Dakota

3

103.8

62.9%

4.

Vermont

3

103.8

38.8%

5.

Minnesota

10

103.7

47.6%

6.

Montana

3

103.4

59.1%

7.

Maine

4

103.4

44.6%

8.

Iowa

7

103.2

49.9%

9.

Connecticut

7

103.1

43.9%

10.

Wisconsin

10

102.9

49.3%

11.

Kansas

6

102.8

62.0%

12.

South Dakota

3

102.8

59.9%

13.

New Jersey

15

102.8

46.2%

14.

Wyoming

3

102.4

68.7%

15.

Nebraska

5

102.3

65.9%

16.

Washington

11

101.9

45.6%

17.

Virginia

13

101.9

53.7%

18.

Ohio

20

101.8

50.8%

19.

Indiana

11

101.7

59.9%

20.

Colorado

9

101.6

51.7%

21.

Pennsylvania

21

101.5

48.5%

22.

Idaho

4

101.4

68.4%

23.

Oregon

7

101.2

47.2%

24.

Utah

5

101.1

71.5%

25.

Missouri

11

101.0

53.3%

26.

New York

31

100.7

40.1%

27.

Michigan

17

100.5

47.8%

28.

Delaware

3

100.4

45.8%

29.

North Carolina

15

100.2

56.0%

30.

Texas

34

100.0

61.1%

31.

Illinois

21

99.9

44.5%

32.

Maryland

10

99.7

43.0%

33.

Rhode Island

4

99.5

38.7%

34.

Kentucky

8

99.4

59.6%

35.

Oklahoma

7

99.3

65.6%

36.

Alaska

3

99.0

61.1%

37.

West Virginia

5

98.7

56.1%

38.

South Carolina

8

98.4

57.9%

39.

Florida

27

98.4

52.1%

40.

Georgia

15

98.0

58.0%

41.

Tennessee

11

97.7

56.8%

42.

Arkansas

6

97.5

54.3%

43.

Arizona

10

97.4

54.9%

44.

Nevada

5

96.5

50.5%

45.

Alabama

9

95.7

62.5%

46.

New Mexico

5

95.7

49.8%

47.

Hawaii

4

95.6

45.3%

48.

California

55

95.5

44.4%

49.

Louisiana

9

95.3

56.7%

50.

Mississippi

6

94.2

59.5%

A casual glance at the chart reveals two things: first, that the IQ differences between the states are actually quite small; and second, that there really isn't such a noticeable difference between the "blue" and "red" states after all. Kerry does seem to have a slight advantage, as more of the states near the top of the chart are in his electoral column. But how great is the difference really?

It's easy enough to figure out. Since electoral votes are based on population (the more people that live in a state, the more electoral votes it has), we now have before us enough information to calculate average IQ of both Bush voters and Kerry voters.

I calculated the averages in two different ways. First, I did a basic state-by-state method, using the same winner-take-all system of the electoral college, and assigning all the voters of each state to the candidate who won that state. This method will give a crude but fairly accurate estimation of IQ for the overall voters for each candidate. Second, I did a much more precise calculation by taking into consideration the exact percentage of voters in each state who voted for Bush (and for Kerry). This method gives an extremely accurate measure of each side's average IQ, since several states' electoral votes were awarded entirely to one candidate or another, even though he may have only gotten only 51% of the votes in that particular state.

In any event, either method will give a reliable average IQ of the voters for each side.

And without further ado, here are the results (feel free to do the computations yourself to confirm them, if you choose to):

Precise Calculation, Using Exact Vote Counts

Kerry voters: IQ 100.88
Bush voters: IQ 99.81

Basic Calculation, Using State-by-State Method

Kerry voters: IQ 101.29
Bush voters: IQ 99.76

Kerry supporters have an average IQ of either just above or just below 101, depending on the calculation method; and Bush supporters have an IQ of just under 100, whichever way it is calculated. For simplicity's sake, we'll round Kerry off to 101 and Bush to 100. (To be exact, the difference between Kerry voters and Bush voters is somewhere between 1.07 and 1.53 IQ points.)

So, the evidence shows that the average Kerry voter has an IQ of 101, while the average Bush voter has an IQ of 100. While this one-point difference may appear significant to partisan advocates, in truth the difference between 100 and 101 is negligable, so statistically insignificant as to be meaningless. It is not possible to tell the difference between someone who is one point above average and someone else who is 1/4th of one point below average. In fact, in casual conversation, you couldn't distinguish between someone with an IQ of 95 from someone with an IQ of 105.

(Technical notes: The scientific IQ study did not include data for Washington, DC. Since Kerry won Washington DC by a wide margin, yet since other studies show DC with a lower-than-average IQ ranking, this missing data would actually lower the average IQ of Kerry voters; nonetheless, it is not included in these calculations. Also, you may notice that the combined average IQ of Kerry and Bush voters is slightly over 100, which may seem odd since the very definition of the IQ scale is based on the average intelligence of the average American; hence, the grand total average, in theory, ought to have come out to exactly 100. The explanation for the descrepancy is that the national IQ overall has gone up by a little less than one point since the IQ scale was first designed.)

This result alone is enough to show that there is in fact essentially no difference in intelligence between Bush voters and Kerry voters. But further analysis reveals something even more startling -- and a bit controversial.

Take a look at this map showing the election results on a county-by-county basis (again, the analysis continues below the graphic):

One of the reasons standardized tests like IQ tests are so controversial and so disliked is that certain minority groups tend to score lower than average on them. I'm not here to defend these tests, or to theorize why these groups score lower on average (and there are many convincing and reasonable explanations); I'm merely pointing out a well-known and universally acknowledged fact. Specifically, that Native Americans, Hispanics, and African-Americans tend to score slightly lower on tests that measure or approximate IQ.

Why bring up this uncomfortable fact? Well, look at the map above again. In particular, look at New Mexico, Texas, and Mississippi, as examples. All three of these states were won by Bush. But certain counties within each state voted for Kerry. In New Mexico, as the map reveals, the northern areas went for Kerry. Yet northern New Mexico is where most of the state's Native American reservations are. Thus, Native Americans tended to favor Kerry. Now look at Texas; the state went almost entirely for Bush, except for the area along the Mexican border, which has a high concentration of Hispanics. Thus, it seems that Kerry got a lot of Hispanic votes. Now on to Mississippi: mostly Bush, except for the counties that border on the Mississippi River -- counties which are majority African-American. (The same principle applies to many other states as well.)

It doesn't take a genius to see where this is heading. IF you accept the validity of IQ (which Kerry supporters unearthed to prop up their "Bush voters are dumb" thesis), and IF you acknowledge that certain minority groups, for whatever sociological and economic reasons (poverty, language barriers, cultural differences), score slightly lower than average on IQ tests, THEN you can come to only one conclusion: that those residents of "red" states that are voting for Kerry are the ones with the lower-than-average IQs. Which means that the higher-IQ residents of many "red" states are the ones voting for Bush.

(I would like to repeat here that I personally do not ascribe to the validity of IQ tests, nor of standardized tests in general. I only use this data in order to rebut the false conclusion derived from it. Kerry supporters have dug this hole themselves, and now must suffer the consequences of their folly.)

The end result of this county-by-county analysis is that the tiny apparent IQ advantage held by Kerry voters is wiped out, if not reversed.

By casting aspersions on southern and western states with high African-American and Native American populations, calling the people who live there "dumb" for voting for Bush, and attempting to prove it by dragging out statistics, the Kerry camp is flirting with behavior that borders on the offensive. Their accusations only highlight the fact that, even in pro-Bush states, it is those voters who are Kerry supporters that are the ones which account for the states' low test rankings.

CONCLUSION
a. There is no discernible intelligence difference between Bush voters and Kerry voters.
b. Kerry supporters who insist that Bush voters are "dumb," and who point out as evidence state-by-state IQ scores, are engaging in behavior that could be construed as racially inflammatory.

(Thanks to a helpful reader for suggesting improvements to this page [February, 2007].)